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Zhou Daxin came back many times late, always bringing his wife Zeng Xiaoqin with him. In Xiang's mother's eyes, Zeng Xiaoqin was Zhou Daxin's loyal shadow. Zhou Daxin and Zeng Xiaoqin are a couple who are tenants of Xiang's mother's house. Mother Xiang's residence is the last old neighborhood in Bishui City. The old residents in the old neighborhood have died and moved, leaving old people like Mrs. Xiang and Uncle Xiang who are nostalgic to watch over the last years of the old houses in the old neighborhood. The old houses and empty houses vacated in the old neighborhoods are rented out to country people and outsiders who come to make a living. Mother Xiang's daughter, Xiang Ye, got married, and her son started his own business. Two rooms upstairs were vacant, one for storing sundries, and the other for rent to Zhou Daxin and Zeng Xiaoqin. They leave early and come back late. No matter how late it is, Xiang's mother always stays at the door. The door is an old-fashioned double door with stone mortars installed on the top and bottom. The sliding door leaves make a rustling sound, which is ancient and distant. The couple would sometimes come back at three o'clock and go out at five o'clock, or even work overtime and stay up all night. Their bodies were really hard to break down.

Three years after Zhao Xiaohai disappeared, he suddenly appeared on the village road. The village road is like an unearthed long sword in the plain surrounded by four mountains. It breaks through the plain along the stream and points directly to the entrance of Qingmei Village in the northwest. Zhao Xiaohai led a horse and gradually zoomed in on the village road until it became a human figure. The horse behind it was like a large pool of dark red blood flowing slowly. This rare scene approached the village entrance, and dusk also approached Qingmei Village. The setting sun is like a red peach blossom, and the dark red horse is splashing with blood, as if a disaster is following Zhao Xiaohai. The village road echoed with the crisp sound of horse hooves trampling on the concrete road. A group of children after school heard the sound and captured the horse's message. They exclaimed and rolled a cigarette over to circle the tired walking horse. In front of the low and low horse rope, Zhao Xiaohai has a messy head of dirty hair, a face covered in dust and bone edges, and his lips are cracked and blistered with blood, and he is looking ahead numbly.

In the summer of 1938, after a few days of heavy rain with a vengeance, a group of Taiwanese came to Chong'an City among the high mountains in northern Fujian. Fang Meicui pulled her mother Shi Yurong's clothes onto the steamer deck from Hongshanqiao Pier in Fuzhou, carrying a baggage as thin as an animal skin. The Kuomintang government issued an oral order, and the Taiwanese civilian ship had a small number of people, and the trip was in a hurry, so it was light and simple. They were almost escorted onto the ship, and the conductor's attitude was as cool as the morning breeze. They went north along the Min River, and the steamboat traveled for a day and a night. When they docked at the Yanping Pier in central Min, fog filled the Min River, and the cascading mountain towns and houses revealed ghostly gray shadows in the fog. Fang Meicui was as obedient as a sick cat, clinging tightly to Shi Yurong's side, her eyes full of timidity, fear and questions.

Hu Zengguan, editor and reporter, was born in Lianjiang, Fujian Province in 1964. He currently works at the Wuyishan City News Center. After publishing millions of words of various literary works in hundreds of newspapers and periodicals across the country, he started writing novels in 2004. He has published several short and medium-length novels in October, Fujian Literature, Times Literature, Xiamen Literature, Qinghai Lake, Yanhe, etc. Some of his works have been reprinted in "Selected Novellas". He has published a collection of novels "Living More Complicated than a Cockroach" and a collection of essays "Fragments of Sunshine". Member of Fujian Provincial Writers Association and member of Chinese Prose Poetry Society. Su Afang's daughter will get married in a few days. As a daughter, she didn't worry too much. She had to pick and choose until she was thirty or even ten cents before she agreed on one and finalized the wedding date. Su Afang should be happy that the things on her mind were settled, but Su Afang couldn't be happy at all. She put down this worry and picked up the other one.

My grandfather took my aunt away and gave her away. My grandfather gave away my father's happiness and peace in his life. My grandfather sent my aunt away, and my father cried all day and night and went on a hunger strike for three days. On the morning of the fourth day, my father was sitting on the threshold, his eyes empty and his body as soft as noodles. My grandfather rubbed his stomach and made a loud burping sound from his throat, which smelled sour of sweet potato soup. His head was dizzy and he said: If you don't eat, you will starve to death. I can still have one more mouthful of food to see if you are tough or I am.